After a hectic 2019 edition, the route of the Tour de France 2020 is now known. It was unveiled Tuesday, October 15 in Paris.
Between Nice, June 27, and the Champs-Elysees, July 19, the layout, muscular, nervous, dynamic, is substantially as mountainous as that of last summer. With fewer passages at very high altitude but more mountainous medium since, besides the Pyrenees and the Alps, the other three massifs of the Hexagon (Massif Central, Jura, Vosges) are in the spotlight.
🤩 Here it is, the road of the # TDF2020 🤩
🤩 Here is the course of # TDF2020 🤩 pic.twitter.com/Npe3u3FYJl
The Col de la Loze, at 2,304 meters will be this year roof office of the Tour. "The prototype of the 21st century pass," says the director of the Great Circle Christian Prudhomme, who was excited about this new route, in fact a 7-kilometer single bike track, recently tarmacked over the station Savoyard of Meribel.
"It's a succession of ruptures of slope, all more brutal than the others", explains the director of the Tour, enthusiastic after the inaugural passage of the Tour de l'Avenir last summer. For pure climbers, it's all profit.
But the riders / climbers, who have often confiscated the classification in recent years (four wins for Froome, one for Thomas), will have an opportunity then to regain ground. On the eve of the traditional arrival in Paris, they will have a time trial of 36 kilometers, the only "chrono" of the 21 stages. Still ends with the rough rise of The Plank of Beautiful Girls.
To join the resort of Vosges in the process of becoming a classic Tour (5th visit since 2012), the road will pass by Melisey, the village of Thibaut Pinot, victim of a terrible abandonment in the 2019 edition. Like Chris Froome, Egan Bernal or Julian Alaphilippe, the French climber has discovered the surprises and novelties of the course concocted by Christian Prudhomme and the race director Thierry Gouvenou.
. @ chrisfroome 🎙 "It's the hardest road I've seen in the last few years"
"It's the toughest course I've seen in recent years. # TDF2020 pic.twitter.com/VLQXyKTBxG
A passage through the village of Jacques Chirac
Like the many spectators gathered at the Palais des Congrès, he saw on the giant screen the photo of Jacques Chirac, since the Tour had decided well before the death on September 26 of the former president to stop in his village of Sarran in Corrèze, on the eve of climbing to Puy Mary, emblematic site of Auvergne.
"The course is fully drawn in the Hexagon," said Christian Prudhomme, between two editions starting from Brussels (2019) and Copenhagen (2021). "There will be 29 passes, one less than originally planned for the 2019 Tour before the neutralization of the Tignes stage".
The director of the Tour has identified four new climbs, including Hourcère in the second stage and the Pyrenees Loze which, in the opinion of Christian Prudhomme, has everything to become a long-term classic. "The Tour continues to renew itself," he said at the end of his presentation. "Next year, the longest leg will be 218 kilometers - never will the longest leg have been so short!"
With AFP